When performing a minimally invasive spinal intervention, a popular imaging modality is intra-operative fluoroscopy. The field of view of a fluoroscopy imager is quite small. Therefore, such an imager can simultaneously display only a few spinal vertebrae of a long spinal column, and identifying contiguous vertebrae is difficult, because such contiguous vertebrae are similar in shape. Displaying the entire spinal column is not feasible. In addition, the 2D fluoroscopy only shows 2D projections, and it is difficult to assess 3D differences from such projections. Therefore, a burden is placed upon a medical professional performing a minimally invasive spinal intervention, because they must ensure that the correct vertebral level is being treated.
EP 2 756 804 describes a system for identifying a part of a spine. Such systems can be further improved. U.S. Pat. No. 8,509,502 describes a system configured to identify a plurality of vertebrae and label each vertebra based on a 3D spinal model data and an analysis of 3D vertebral shape difference.